


just wait for me to come home

by wordswithdragons



Series: post through the moon [3]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Book: Through the Moon (The Dragon Prince), otherwise known as: the kids are going through it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithdragons/pseuds/wordswithdragons
Summary: Rayla runs and Callum chases her. It’s their own cycle to break. OR: the post-TTM reunion fic with a whole lot of angst.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Series: post through the moon [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993681
Comments: 22
Kudos: 113





	just wait for me to come home

**Author's Note:**

> title is inspired from ed sheeran's "photograph." TTM broke me so i decided to break my heart further and then also put it back together. there's a happy ending, i swear
> 
> this also does fit in with my two previous post-ttm pieces, so i would recommend reading those first, since there's references and continuity there
> 
> enjoy, babes

_“Some people care too much. I think it’s called love.”_ _  
_ —a.a. milne

_i._

Callum insists on having a portrait done, their second week back in Katolis.

Ez is getting his done following his second, public coronation. The official change to kingship means that Callum's position has changed too, from step-prince to crown heir. That, and the court likes to update the royal family whenever it changes, and well, it certainly has. Rayla thinks he looks very handsome, dressed up more nicely than she's seen him thus far, after a month of sleeping in the dirt. His new tunic isn't short on him at all and outlined with gold and he wears a smaller version of Ezran's crown with the tips slanted the way his mother's had been in the pictures Rayla has seen of her.

Ezran's is done, the whole thing very regal, and now he munches on jelly tarts beside her while Callum gets positioned. Rayla is still smiling at the thought of the court painter being thrown by Bait's prominent presence in Ezran's arms. Then, as Callum smooths down his scarf, her thoughts shift to her dorky boyfriend and how maybe she and Ez can get a laugh out of teasing Callum while he stands for his portrait. Trying to make him laugh or break, just a little or something.

But then, as though seeing the mischief in her eyes before it's fully taken form, Callum's gaze narrows in on her and he holds out his hand, his lips curling. "C'mere."

Rayla's eyebrows shoot up. "What?"

Callum gives his outstretched hand a little insistent shake. "Be in the picture with me."

She knows the court painter is as surprised as she is, even if she openly balks a bit more. "But this is your official royal portrait—”

“In commemoration of us saving the world,” Callum says, equal parts earnest and joking. “And you helped save the world with me, so—?”

Rayla has never been able to deny him anything—not his hopeful wishes about the cube, his questions on the boat, her heart before she even knew it had been lost (then found)—least of all when he’s being sweet like he is now. His hand is warm when she takes it and Callum beams at her, giving it a squeeze.

He tugs her beside him and Rayla shifts a little nervously now that she’s standing on the steps with him, conscious of the thrones at their backs. Her shoulder brushes his and she does her best to smile in a way that can be maintained for a long while.

“Am I standing too close?” she whispers out of the corner of her mouth.

Callum glances at her and chuckles. “No,” he whispers, squeezing her hand. His eyes crinkle, so full of affection her shoulders ease. “You’re doing fine. Just stay like that, alright?”

A real smile breaks out over her face and sticks, her heart doing a happy little skip. She laces her fingers through his. Staying by his side, holding his hand, making him smile. She can do that. “Alright.”

Until, of course, she can’t.

Her chest is impossibly tight as she takes in every possible detail of their room, before she goes. The Moon Nexus has only been home for two weeks—and the castle for two weeks more—but Callum’s familiarity makes it easy. The way he snuffles in his sleep just a few feet away in his bed. His sketchbook open on the desk. One of her spare stockings had been draped over the back of her chair before she’d tucked it away in her travel bag.

She’s watched him sketch in the evenings so often his sketchbook isn’t a mystery, now, but her gaze drops to the pages away anyway. She catches her herself, slams her eyelids shut, feels tears burn underneath. She’s _ stalling _ and she knows it. She looks anyway. Her eyes are already sore from writing in thin candlelight and trying to get the words right (and to keep her tears from blotting the letter she’s left tied together with string). What’s one more cursed indulgence?

It is, of course, a drawing of them. When has the universe never not twisted the knife deeper into her chest? But Rayla finds herself grateful, too. She doesn’t think she’d be able to stand it—able to go—if it was just a drawing of her, as his sketches so often are. He calls her his favourite muse with a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his lips, and Rayla had kissed him more than once with a mutter of “Stop being stupid,” even if she couldn’t quite hide her smile.

She’s also told him, on more than one occasion, that he doesn’t draw himself enough. She’d asked him once, around a campfire in the early forests of Xadia while dinner was cooking, about why he didn’t draw himself more often. He’d shrugged his shoulders and shot her a lopsided grin.

“I draw the things I love,” he’d explained. “Or find cool.” 

She hadn’t had the words, at the time, to say he should love himself more, or at least not so plainly. She’d only scrounged up, “You’re cooler than you give yourself credit for,” which he had teased her about endlessly, afterwards, before giving way to a sincere, “Thank you,” once they were done eating.

Rayla had liked to think she’d made up for it since then, but she knows this will undo it all, too.

In this picture, they’re laughing, arms wrapped around each other’s waists. He’s leaning into her, not having to worry about his height or possible horns. She recognizes it from three nights ago, when they’d walked back to the dwelling, loopy and laughing from how tired they were from assembling some of the last touches on the Moon Nexus.

Her hands move before she can really think it through but the rip is clean and in the end, she holds the half with Callum’s laughing face in her hand. She folds it carefully, picking the creases to line up with his shoulders and belt, and then tucks it away in her bag.

He might never be this way with her again, and she wants to remember it.

_ii._

When Callum wakes up, the world feels blurry. Vaguely, he’s aware that it’s raining steadily against the dwelling’s rooftop. Part of him thinks it’s just fatigue, as his eyes slip shut again. The past couple days—the past two nights and holding Rayla while she grieved her family, almost losing her—has been a lot. 

The feeling goes deeper than that. A little more shaky. Everything feels off-kilter, somehow. Empty. Like it’s missing some sort of crucial piece—a different but similar sort of ache to lying in bed that night at the Nexus so long ago, thinking that magic was impossible, that he would never feel like  _ himself  _ again, after a fourteen year ache with one beautiful reprieve that began when Rayla called him a mage, and—

She wouldn’t.

He springs out of bed, tossing back the blankets, and sees hers all nicely done up. Her bed is empty, her— _ his _ pajamas folded up in a neat pile. Phoe-Phoe’s feather glitters blue next to a letter. Thunder claps outside.

She did. 

He can’t tell if it’s rain or tears on his face as he streaks outside. It feels like he’s in a hurricane, whipping around before common sense dawns. He needs rune paint, for his wings, and Lujanne’s dwelling isn’t far. He scampers down the small hill and over the stone pathways until he’s banging on her door, his pajamas soaked through.

Lujanne takes one look at him, once the door opens and her sleepy disgruntledness fades, at his stricken face, and her own furrows with concern. “Come inside or you’ll catch a cold,” she scolds, as Allen sits up in bed somewhere behind her. She’s wrapped in a blue robe and pajamas not unlike her outerwear. Phoe-Phoe is curled up in a little nest on one of Lujanne’s shelves.

“I need rune paint,” he gasps. “I need to go after her—”

“Slow down,” Lujanne says. “What happened?”

“Rayla, she—she’s  _ gone _ —she must’ve left sometime last night and I need—”

“I’ll put on some tea,” Allen mumbles, plodding over to the little kitchenette Lujanne’s dwelling has and reaching for a copper kettle.

“You are not going after her in this weather,” Lujanne says, firm.

Callum gapes at her. “She’s out there,  _ alone —” _

“Yes, and I am not about to let you go flying during a lightning storm after her after yesterday!” 

“How is this any different from the portal?” he demands, angrier than he’s ever been, but his eyes are wild, sliding away from Lujanne, looking for a small bowl. She has to have rune paint here of some kind. He can do the runes himself.

“Because she is a Moonshadow elf who left in the middle of the night,” Lujanne says, breathing hard through her nose. “And if she does not want to be found, she won’t be. You cannot leave without telling your brother and Soren, at least.”

Callum turns away from her, his mind and heart racing. This is getting him nowhere. Lujanne doesn’t know what she’s talking about, even as his gaze keeps straying back to her. He can’t find the rune paint anywhere. “You can tell them.”

“The way that Rayla told you?”

He’s definitely crying, now, as he wipes his eyes and stares at Lujanne. “Where is the rune paint?”

Lujanne takes him by his shoulders. “Callum, you’re not thinking clearly—”

“ I CAN’T LOSE HER!”  At first, he thinks he’s shouted it, but then Lujanne wraps an arm around him and pulls him to her and he realizes he’s sobbing instead. Tears stream wordlessly down his cheeks. Everything in him is shaking.

He thought the night with the portal had been the worst, of letting her go in alone being the biggest mistake he’s ever made in his whole life. All the terror and dread of watching Ezran slip under the ice. The heavy pit in his stomach when Harrow had explained his mom wasn’t coming home. Watching Rayla leap off into the trees _—_ _ if I don’t come back _ _—_ her pendant settling over his neck and weighing a thousand pounds _—_ _ Goodbye, Callum _ _—_ her, hurtling off the pinnacle and the horrified seconds that had trickled by like his tears—

This is worse, because she left because she’s noble and stupid and he did everything he could, and she left anyway. Left him. She left him. Not to save someone else, not because she had to, not because she wanted to. She would never  _ want _ to leave him. But because she’s scared—she always runs when she’s scared and she  _ hates _ being scared—and he couldn’t convince her she was  _ safe .  _

“I can’t lose her,” he sobs, more subdued in volume.

Allen brings him a cup of tea and Lujanne squeezes him round the middle. He must be getting her robes all wet. “It’s not your fault,” she says. It couldn’t be more different than the anger she’d shown when she’d realized he’d opened the portal.

Callum pulls away from her and wipes at his face with his sopping sleeve. “I still want to go after her.”

“I know,” Lujanne says. “But you won’t be able to spot anything in this weather. Now, sit down and have your tea. Allen, can you go fetch Soren and Ezran, please? They should be brought up to speed.” She steers Callum into a chair and places a hand on his shoulder. “I will see what I can do. The Moon Nexus is heavily enchanted... I can see if she’s made it past the last remnants of my spells surrounding the place.”

There’s little doubt in Callum’s mind that she has. Rayla is fast and clever. She’d told him the story of that first night when she had been unable to kill the guard. Rain won’t slow her down. But Callum sits at Lujanne’s spindly round table and takes a gulp of scorching tea that burns his throat and tries to remember how to breathe.

He’s shivering, soaked through the bone by the time Ezran and Soren arrive, Soren using his cape to shield them both. It just makes Callum worry for her more. Rayla doesn’t have a warm dwelling or tea or friends or an umbrella. The rain has just worsened, some blowing in before Lujanne shuts the dwelling door again. Callum knows he wouldn’t be able to see his hand in front of his face if he stepped outside, let alone anything on the ground from the sky.

Lightning flashes against the window panes and Callum feels it pierce his veins. It’s not invigorating or hopeful the way storms have been since he’d made his connection. It just makes him feel more awake as he drags his dead weight around. He feels more numb than ever, as Lujanne quietly explains the situation. Callum tunes out Soren’s loud exclamations that Ezran quickly shushes.

He just hopes if the rain is this bad, now, that Rayla has found shelter.

When the storm lifts half a day later, he doesn't, against his better judgment, immediately go to look for her. Ezran has always been his anchor in that regard, and his brother's worried stare keeps him somewhat, literally, grounded, even everything else is restless and raging. He knows what he has to do now. It’s only a matter of doing it.

But, instead, Callum lets Ezran talk him into going back to Katolis.

“If you’re going to go to Xadia,” Ezran says, with a firmness Callum recognizes from his kingly orders, “you should at least be properly packed, this time.”

Food, rations, moon moths. Corvus’ tracking tips stored in his brain. A small book of illusionist spells from Lujanne. Bandages. Gold coins that elves will accept. An extra coat for colder climates. Some extra shirts in case a growth spurt hits. A tiny cooking pan and a bedroll.

“You should still take Corvus with you,” Ezran says with that quiet frown on his face as he watches Callum pack the final necessities. 

Callum ignores him. They’ve had this discussion almost every day since Rayla left, which would be five in total. “Corvus can’t fly,” he reiterates. “He’d only slow me down.”

It’s been seven days when Callum finally says goodbye. He gives Soren a stern look, to which the crownguard gives him a bone-crushing hug. Once the air comes back to his lungs, Callum says, still a bit gruffly, “Take care of my brother.”

But Soren sobers and places a hand over his heart. “I will,” he promises, and then a tad more lightheartedly without losing his sincerity, “You got this, buddy.”

Callum can appreciate the sentiment.

Saying goodbye to Ezran is much harder, their arms wrapped tight around each other. He knows Ezran would come with him if he could, but things are already so different now than they were just a couple of months ago.

“Bring her home,” Ezran whispers, sounding close to tears. They both know he doesn’t have to say it. Callum won’t come home without her.

Callum hugs him tighter. “I won’t be away for too long,” he says, and does his best to be truthful. “I promise.”

_ iii. _

Her homeland is surprisingly lonely. It shouldn’t be, because it’s all familiar. She’d gone on hunting expeditions with Runaan, learned the path that led to the human kingdoms like the back of her hand before their mission. This time on her way into Xadia she bypasses the Silvergrove entirely after skipping across the Moonstone Path, one rock at a time. Sol Regem’s canyon is empty.

It hits her in every place she wanders, how Callum held her hand over there, or saved her life by that bend. He’d thought she was worth saving. Worth loving. She can’t understand how. As the familiarity of her surroundings fade, her heartache grows stronger. Xadia is full of wondrous magic and Callum had given her new eyes. Every time Rayla sees something extraordinary or wonderful, she wants to look beside her, to see his reaction—or thinks of how much Callum would love this—and is punched in the gut with remembrance.

He’s not there because she left him. Everyone else has had to die or live with her choices. Why not her?

Her homeland won’t feel like home until he’s beside her again. Nothing will. She chose that.

Rayla soldiers on. 

It takes just under a month to travel to the Storm Spire. She takes the long way around the Midnight Desert, unable to stand the memories. She doesn’t know what she would do if she ran into Nyx and the Skywing’s incorrigible teasing again. 

She scours the grass plains with the last hints of the summer wind rolling over them. She goes around to the back of the pinnacle and finds nothing but a few rusted old shields. Ignores the fact that her and Callum told one another they loved each other for the first time in the sky above her. There is still no body. She can’t go home. 

Her nights are restless with no one to watch her back. The same nightmares from the Nexus and the castle follow her from forest to forest. Callum, frozen; Callum, dying; only this time, waking brings no relief. She learns to sleep with one eye open. 

During the sunlit hours, Rayla finds whatever towns she can. She slogs exhausted through the day, wandering aimlessly, alone at all hours. She’s only ever travelled with her troupe or the boys or Callum. She misses the silent companionship, divvying up chores, the chatter. Callum’s warm arms around her.

She doesn’t get to miss him (even if it’s all she does). She’s the one who  _ left _ .

The situation isn’t helped by the fact she’s surrounded by more mages than ever, on the rare days she isn’t just wandering aimlessly alone. Mages travel here and there, wearing amulets and grasping staffs. One town is full of them and used as a sort of trading hub.

Rayla has never been particularly personable or friendly, but she does her best to be charming to get information. She’s always been a good liar.

Finally, she gets some valuable pieces of information, another fortnight later. Where the mage black market is that a mage like Viren would love. Elves who do dark magic are their own kind of terrible and Rayla sees more things that add themselves onto her nightmares. There’s one elf who specializes in dark magic healing and makes a living by chopping off his own fingers to sell and then growing them back. 

Rayla scours the black market and peers through illusions, but there is still no trace of Viren. 

One month turns into three.

It’s winter when Rayla pulls her cloak tighter around her head and it barely fits anymore. This town is one populated by a lot of families. Children clutch their parents’ hands. Lovers stand underneath twine and steal kisses, lingering in doorways. Rayla doesn’t have enough money for a new coat—it turns out hunting a madman while going through the growth spurts of puberty is terribly inconvenient—and she settles for new gloves that go up to her elbows instead. This will have to do for now.

The cold also helps her blend in, with everyone having their hoods up, Skywing or Earthblood elf alike. Everyone dressed in elven blues and greens.

Then a flash of red catches her eye one day amid the white snow and brown cabins of a town—and Rayla runs towards it before she can think better of it. Her feet carry her forward, steered by her heart that’s rapidly beating in her throat. It’s a  _ red scarf _ and she misses him _ so much _ and—

She stops short. The scarf belongs to a girl holding her boyfriend’s hand, both of them bearing Earthblood antlers. Rayla cycles through emotions faster than she can blink, aching disappointment in her gut and bone deep relief because if he’s not here, he’s safe. She shouldn’t want him here. She shouldn’t want him—

She finds the nearest deserted alleyway and almost throws up. Holds her stomach and sobs quietly with her forehead pressed against a wooden wall of a store. Who cares if the passersby think she’s crazy? Maybe she is. They would be too, if they were her.

(Everyone she loves ends up dead. Everyone who loves her ends up dead. If she could tear out her own heart, she would. She knows she’s already done the same to the boy she left behind.)

Rayla sits by the campfire she’s built herself on the outskirts of the town that night, boiling water to drink from the salt streams from the lowland forests. She unfolds the drawing of Callum she has. She’s done it so many times the creases are smoothed out. The lines are a little faded. She traces his face with her fingers and wipes at her own before her tears can blot what she has left. Inhales and presses her lips to the paper, tucking it back in her cloak before she breaks down, not for the first time.

(It’s a hazard of whenever she thinks about what he must’ve looked like when he realized she was gone, period.)

She just wants to go home, but how can she, empty handed? How can she when she knows Viren is out there, hurting people? When he will eventually threaten Callum’s life again? It doesn’t matter if she misses Callum. It doesn’t matter if he hates her. She didn’t leave so he would be happy, although he will be, one day, when he forgets her—if he hasn’t already. She left so he could live, even if she didn’t. Happiness doesn’t get to factor in. 

It’s enough to keep her going.

Just when Rayla thinks she can’t hate herself more, Claudia captures her by the Ruins of Elarion six months in. The other girl looks as terrible as Rayla feels. They’re both run ragged, six months in, and Claudia has far more white hair than she did the last time Rayla saw her, in the rain with the dragon and... Callum. Claudia takes her blood and a chunk of hair and spits venomous words, but she lets her go.  _ He loves you, _ Claudia says, lips bitter.  _ So just this once. Go home to him. While you still can. _

Rayla touches the seared chunk of hair that remains from the jagged edge of Claudia’s knife. Remembers how Callum had made a braid there for her once, although it hadn’t held after they’d been caught out in the rain, laughing too hard to make it home in time from their picnic. 

She didn’t deserve him then and she definitely doesn’t deserve him now.

Runaan was wrong and Runaan was right. Murder and violence is all she’s good for. Rayla will see it through to the end.

_iv._

Callum follows Ethari’s advice after his stop in the Silvergrove, his first couple weeks in Xadia. The town Tarrey gives him Terry and isn’t far from the Silvergrove, and the similarity in names makes him smile for the first time since Rayla left. He almost makes a dumb pun and turns, expecting to see Rayla’s eyeroll, but there is nothing but empty space beside him. That sobers him. 

Terry the Earthblood elf is a good guide to Xadia, skinny with green skin and floppy brown hair, but he's still got nothing on Rayla. His horns are more angular than rounded. He reminds Callum of Soren, but a little older; he’s in his mid-twenties rather than late teens. He rambles as much as Callum does—or used to.

Callum is too busy looking for glimpses of white and green to marvel much at the wonders they see. Continuous waterfalls, glistening lakes, rainbow trees, glowing squirrels, and melodaisies of every tune. He memorizes the phases of the moon to keep track of days and because it makes her absence ache a little less.

He keeps Terry as a guide because he knows the fastest way to anywhere in Xadia and never loses his way in the woods. He walks fast enough that it makes up for the fact Callum can’t fly too much, and eventually Callum stops tripping after him. Terry is also good at making camp with meagre materials. Callum turns over the coin Ethari gave him and is relieved every time it hasn’t changed, meaning that the elf’s coin is calm in the Silvergrove and that Rayla’s flower still floats. 

At first, they try tracking Viren, but the staff he left on the Pinnacle was already destroyed by the Sunfire elves after the war. There is also the Dark Magic black market, but it makes both of them queasy. It makes Callum wake up with nightmares of exactly what sort of trouble Rayla could have gotten herself into. 

They leave it behind and work on tracking her instead. 

All his tracking spells with bits of Ethari’s moon opals turn out to be equally as futile, each leading to the wrong Moonshadow elf or Moon-Arcanum attached creature. Callum loses his temper in more than one seedy tavern and had been glad for Ethari moonlight scimitar attached to his hip. It looks more threatening than a human wandering Xadia and Callum doesn’t feel like letting everyone know that he has primal magic right away. (Terry had been swayed to early silence due to money.)

The whispers of an archmage of all six primal sources are as unnerving as they are alluring, locked away into a mirror realm. A monster. He remembers the way Zubeia had been anxious over whether anything else had been taken from the antechamber, the mirror Rayla’s parents had fought in front of. The mirror found in Viren’s secret dungeon and returned to Zubeia accordingly. But Callum has enough on his plate to go chasing old folktales and mythos; the Dragon Queen hadn’t wanted to talk about the mirror. The archmage had never been given a name, deemed too monstrous to be allowed one anymore.

Callum chases more moon magic instead. He’s drawn to it more than ever out of necessity. Terry teases him that maybe he should have connected to the Moon arcanum, rather than Sky. Callum has more important things to focus on than the magic stirring in his veins.

They head to the Shiverglades in the high north before winter sets in too terribly for travel. Callum pulls his scarf up around his nose and thinks of how Rayla’s hands had always been warmer than his despite being much smaller. 

Her letter is burned into the back of his brain.  _ Dear Callum, I’m sorry you have to find this way, but I’m leaving.  _ He murmurs it to himself quietly at night when he can’t sleep.  _ I know that Viren isn’t really your mission and that you’d only be coming along because of me, deep down. I can’t risk you like that _ _._ Scrawls it on pages of his sketchbook when his hand wanders and his drawings deteriorate.  _ I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to you.  _ Her parting words are the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up in the morning, and her absence never stings any less.  _ I love you. Always. Just wait for me to come home. _

He wonders, not for the first time, why her love is the opposite of his. Why his love is staying and hers is leaving and why he always seems to be the one who loses. Loses  _ her .  _

He dreams of her by rivers and wakes up more than once hoping Terry hadn’t heard him mumble her name. He draws her when his fingers aren’t freezing and traces the half torn drawing she left behind; the laughter and love on her face that she didn’t think was worth staying for. It feels like an apt representation of his heart. 

Once, when they’re near the grasslands of the Far Reaches on the opposite side of the continent, Terry asks, almost hesitantly, “How long was it?”

Callum hasn’t told him much about Rayla. Only that she was his friend, that she’s in danger and he’s looking for her. Other facts have slipped out over the course of months, simply because he has so many. That she’s a Moonshadow elf with dual blades and violet eyes. That she always arches one eyebrow when she’s confused. That, surprisingly, she tends to sleep in later than him regardless. The way she taught him how to make a campfire and what berries were good to harvest. That she’s too brave for her own good.

Callum keeps everything else close to his chest, because she’s changed him. The way her mouth curls when she’s trying to fight off a yawn. How  _ angry _ he is at her for leaving him. The sleepy way she’d snuggled into his side at night. The way she’s always been such a good liar. How she likes her eggs sunny-side up. The slight difference in tone between her witty snark and dry sarcasm and the way either makes him laugh more than anything. The way how, worst of all, he hadn’t been able to tell when she was lying  _ to him.  _ How she’s almost always the one to intertwine their fingers. The sparkle in her eyes after kissing his cheek. The way he wished he’d cherished her goodnight kiss more, if he’d known it might have been their last. Her soft grace when she trained for the fun of it. The way he keeps falling asleep and expecting to see her by his side when he wakes up, where she belongs.

Where she belonged.

(He just wants her to come home. He doesn’t say it out loud to Terry, either, but he thinks he doesn’t have to.)

“What do you mean?” Callum says. The warmth of the fire passes over him, the sky dark. It’s almost spring, and Drakewood is beautiful with the forests of the far mideast coming back to life, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. It just reminds him how long she’s been gone. 

Over six months. 

One hundred and eighty-nine days. 

(Not that he keeps a tally chart on the last page of his sketchbook, or anything, next to her folded up letter.)

“How long were you two together?” Terry rephrases. “Y’know, before she...” 

Rayla left of her own free will. Terry knows that too.

Callum supposes he isn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he wants to be. He breathes, feeling like he’s been cracked open anyway. This is the part that makes him feel crazy. “Six weeks.” 

Terry blinks. “Sorry?”

“Six weeks,” he repeats. “And we met about a month before that.”

Terry’s bushy eyebrows leap towards his hairline. “Hold on,” he says, his accent thick as he makes a timeout T-shaped gesture with his hands. “You’ve been travelling Xadia for _ six months _ searching for a girl you didn’t even spend a third of that time together? I don’t mean to be rude, but—you do realize that’s crazy, right?”

“Yup,” Callum says, emphasizing the ‘p’.

Terry whistles from the other side of the fire. “You must really love her.”

Callum stares into the dancing flames. The smoke lifts upwards towards the moon. There’s no point in replying to the truth.

“Does she love you, at least?” Terry says, now sounding as hesitant as he did at the beginning.

Callum smiles almost bitterly. “Yes,” he confirms. “I think that’s part of the problem.” 

Terry is silent for a long time, before he reaches and nudges him in the shoulder. “Hey. I think I got an idea.”

Drakewood isn’t far from where a famously crotchety Earthblood elf named Grezebel. She’s grizzled and old and a grumpy hermit. A mildly unsuccessful hermit, as people keep coming to her cabin on a hill and asking for her to perform the spell she’s famous for.

Callum spends the whole trip over berating Terry for not telling him about this earlier, but the Earthblood elf holds up his hands. “Most people who try are turned away or don’t survive,” he defends. It’s the most taxing tracking spell of them all, too, but it’s Earth magic, not Moon.

Callum isn’t deterred. He knocks with a swift rap of his knuckles on her door. The slab of oak creaks open and the lady that answers it looks just as worn and wooden, teal tassels tangled and hanging from her antlers. Callum catches her eye before she can slam the door in his face. She stops, green eyes widening. Has she ever seen a human before?

_ “Please,” _ Callum whispers, his voice cracking, and Grezebel reluctantly lets them in. 

This tracking spell is derived from Earth’s branch of healing and understanding of the body. It’s dangerous, too, Grezebel warns as she brews the according potion. (Primal mages have long since learned what’s sustainable to take from the land.) You have to ingest it for it to work.

“The elixir will settle in your heart,” Grezebel explains, her face squared jawed and maybe a little sad. “And guide you to where your heart lies. The desire must be selfless. And your organs must be strong enough to survive it. It has never been administered to a human before.”

“I can take it,” Callum says automatically. This is the best lead they’ve had this whole time, although Terry stands behind him, looking nervous.

“Who are you looking for, anyhow?” she asks.

If she wasn’t the first person to offer real, tangible help, Callum thinks he might hesitate. Shrink himself a little. Instead, he answers honestly, even if it’s a truth Rayla never got to hear. “The love of my life.”

Grezebel stops stirring the vat of green liquid and glances at him. “You’re awfully young to be thinking that way.” 

“Kid’s as serious as he is young,” Terry chimes in, arms folded in the corner.

“I love her,” Callum says. “Isn’t that enough?”

“For this spell? No,” Grezebel admits. “Lots of people want to hide themselves away from those that claim to love them. She has to love you back in equal measure for the spell to take hold, and work.” 

Callum sucks in a breath. A lot can change in six months. A lot can change in six weeks. But he knows she wouldn’t have left if she didn’t love him that damn much, either.

He drinks the phial and the spell is warm in his chest. A circular glow emanates from over his heart for a moment before his senses line up his spine, his feet moving forward. A compass needle pointing to his true south. For the first time in months, Callum can breathe.

She’s  _ alive _ and she  _ loves _ him and she’s  _ close _ .

“She’s not far,” he says to Terry, after a thank you to Grezebel as they pack up their things. A dirt path winds down the hermit’s hill. “Listen—” He takes his guide by the shoulder and scribbles out a note once they get to the base. It’s still only midday. “I want you to take this back home to my brother.” 

Terry waves the piece of paper he tears out of his sketchbook. “You can’t just send a letter?’

“Last time I sent a letter, it got intercepted by the wrong person,” Callum says, not quite frowning at the memory of Nyx. “Besides, I don’t need a guide anymore.” He touches his chest, feeling the spell vibrate.

Terry frowns, flabbergasted. “You mean after all this, I don’t even get to  _ meet _ her?”

Callum rolls his eyes. “You will, eventually. I just...”

Then Terry’s brow furrows and he claps him on the shoulder. “You need to do this on your own, first,” he comprehends and Callum nods. “Alright, kid. Good luck.”

Terry hugs him before Callum can decide whether he wants one or not, but slowly hugs him back and then sets off. His pack is heavy, now that he’s responsible for carrying all of his things, but his chest is light. He’s so close.

It does turn out, though, that following the feeling in his heart is easier said than done. He passes the same cluster of willow trees twice and he can’t tell whether it’s because Rayla is moving or because his compass isn’t  _ 100% _ straightforward. There’s trees to walk around and thin rivers to plod over and the forest is dense.

But the closer he gets, the stronger the feeling in his chest grows.

He smiles, tears tugging at his eyes as he steps into a grove and sees  _ her _ standing on the other side, filling her canteen at a creek. 

It feels like coming home.

_v._

Rayla’s first thought is that this is a dream. Her second is that this is a nightmare.

She almost doesn’t want to turn around. How many times has she already watched him die? It can’t be—those  _ can’t be  _ Callum’s footsteps on the edge of the grove, even if they match up perfectly. What is he doing here, all the way in Xadia? This has to be an illusion. Claudia playing tricks on her. Claudia  _ knows _ she loves him. 

Rayla straightens up and turns around. Her canteen slips from her grasp. 

It is. 

She knows he’s not an illusion because he looks  _ different _ , not a perfect replica of the boy she knew, the boy she and Claudia had left behind. His tunic is red but less fancy, not made out of palace fabrics. His blue coat is frayed around the edges but he still wears that stupid red scarf. His hair is a little longer and he’s taller, too, so that now they’re the same height and she knows she’s grown too. She doesn’t have to look down a bit to look him in the eye anymore.

And gods his eyes, sea green and swirling with so many emotions as he gazes at her. It’s scary that she can’t read them all any more the way she used to be able to. She sacrificed so much of him in going away. This is just one more thing. But he’s tired. She can see that much, worn on every edge he ever had.

Rayla swallows, a sob rising in her throat. She should turn and run. Not give him any more reasons to go after her, her stupid,  _ beautiful _ boy. But she has always been too selfish. She has never been strong enough. She can’t stop  _ looking _ at him. She can’t will herself to step away. She can feel the toll of months worth of nightmares melting off her, obliterated by the fact he’s standing here, alive and breathing and  _ not hers _ , maybe, but...

At the very least, she deserves to give him a chance to scream at her. 

Callum steps forward, his face unreadable. His eyes are bright with tears and his mouth keeps quivering, like he’s going to smile or sob or shout but hasn’t decided which yet. Rayla clings to the fact that not all of those options are bad, right? Maybe he doesn’t hate her. (She shouldn’t be hoping for that.)

He’s within arm’s reach and she thinks about how long it’s been. How many nights she studied the moon and the stars to keep track of the days. How many times she dreamed of his face, of a happy, easy reunion and his warm arms. Of going home once this was all over, if she got to live, if he would let her love him again.

Rayla isn’t sure which one of them is trembling more as he reaches out and touches her face. His fingers brush over the curve of her cheek as though making sure she’s real, too, like he’s afraid she’ll shatter or disappear under his touch, and then his palm settles fully, cupping her cheek, and Rayla’s sob is set loose as she looks at him.

He is all her demons, and he is everything she has ever wanted. 

“Callum,” she murmurs, half whimpering. 

His thumb strokes the curve of her cheek and a smile breaks over his face, and she feels fractionally mended, for a moment. Like maybe she isn’t just broken. “Rayla.”

They embrace.

_vi._

Callum holds her as tightly as he possibly can, his shoulders shaking under the loop of her arms around his neck. She’s shaking too, against his chest, and he wants to tell her about the spell, about how they love each other still. He wants to run his hands down her sides and make sure there are no injuries; thankfully, her hug is as steady and warm as hers has always been. She’s alright and alive and in his arms and it feels like everything and like the tip of the iceberg at the same time. There’s too much to say to know where to start.

So, true to form, Rayla makes the first move, pressing an, “I’m sorry,” into his neck, muffled mildly by the fabric of his scarf. Callum exhales, feeling shaky now for a new reason. He’s  _ found her _ and she’s  _ sorry . _ This apology is the first step in easing the ache inside him. His arms tighten around her, if that’s possible, and Rayla presses closer. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

He pulls away, but keeps his hands on either side of her face, unable to entirely let go. She’s tired, bags under her eyes. A little too thin even in the face. Her cloak is frayed at the edge. It’s not the one she took from the Nexus. But her markings are the same. She still looks at him the same.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he whispers, still smiling so wide back at her. “Gods, Rayla—”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. Her hands curl into his scarf instead of his jacket, her brow furrowing now that they’ve both made sure the other is solid and  _ real _ _._ “What are you  _ doing  _ here?”

He stares at her, because isn’t it obvious? Doesn’t she  _ know _ him? “Looking for you,” he answers. “I’ve spent every day of the past seven months looking for you—”

“Two hundred and seventeen days,” she says, close to sobbing, and something catches in his throat too. He doesn’t know what else to do but kiss her, her hands tightening in his scarf, her lips warm and chapped and comforting against his own. This hasn’t changed either.

They break apart, their foreheads pressed together. 

“I didn’t find him,” Rayla says, her voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Callum holds one of her hands, breathing deep. Their fingers still fit together perfectly. “I’m just so  _ glad _ I found  _ you _ _._ We—we can go home now.” Everything will be okay.

Rayla blinks at him, pulling away a little. “Go home?”

“Yeah,” he says, staring at her. A small pit forms in his stomach. “Why wouldn’t we? Soren and Ezran really miss you, and—”

Rayla clasps his hand in both of hers, giving it a squeeze. It makes him stiffen, remembering the last time she’d held his hand like this, paired with the worst lie she’d ever told him.  _ Okay, Callum. We’ll go... together.  _ She lifts her gaze to his and frowns a little. It turns out the truth is much worse. “Callum... Nothing has changed. I can’t go home with you.”

It’s the fear that has nagged at the back of his mind, hooking into his thoughts at night, piercing his heart and clogging his arteries. Rayla has always had a one-track mind. He knows this. He’s never travelled for so long in his life before and he’s tired and he knows this.

Callum takes a deep breath. There will be more time to talk later. For now, this is what matters. “Okay. Then let me come with you this time.” 

She grits her teeth. Her brow is pinched. “Callum. I said that  _ nothing’s  _ changed.” She would just sound exasperated if not for the slight tremor in her voice. 

“Bullshit.” 

Rayla blinks, her mouth forming a small ‘o’. “What?”

“Nothing’s changed?” he repeats, his temper rising, rapidly burning through the relief that she’s alright. He wouldn’t have had to worry for seven sleepless months if she was alright if she hadn’t left him in the first place. “You  _ left  _ me.  _ Everything’s _ changed.” 

Her face crumples. “Callum,” she says, measured and sad the way it was when talking about his father’s death, when he came out of the storm, dejected. She’d caught him then. Kept him upright. Now she’s knocking him down. 

“No, don’t you ‘Callum’ me! You  _ left _ me! You lied! Do you have any idea what it was like to wake up and find out you were—” Callum clamps a hand over his mouth, holding back a sob, and Rayla looks like she wants to go to him but is unsure if she should. Callum isn’t sure if she should, either. He pries his hand away from his mouth, breathing harshly. “I spent the last seven months wondering if I would ever see you again, do _ not _ do that to me  _ again !  I can’t— _ ” His eyes harden and his fingers itch with electricity. The air picks up around them, going from a nonexistent disturbance to the slightest breeze, the frustration building in his veins. “I’m not helpless, I can—”

“I know that,” Rayla snaps. “But I have to go after Viren alone.” 

“Why?” he demands. “Because you’re scared of losing me? Because I am also really scared of losing you, and you are  _ actively _ making me lose my goddamn mind.” 

Rayla glares back at him. It’s times like these he wishes she wasn’t so damn determined (stubborn) all the time. “I can do this on my own, Callum. It’s better like this.”

He almost scoffs. “How? The last time you saw Viren, he froze you in ice and you almost died, Rayla.” 

“And  _ you _ almost died!” 

_ “ Yes, _ _”_ he roars, _“_ _ for you! _ I would have died  _for you!_ And yet you were surprised that I followed you into Xadia? I’ve been getting myself into all sorts of dangerous situations just looking for you! How did you not know this was going to happen?”

She turns away and presses her lips together, her jaw tight. “I was hoping you’d listen,” she hisses. A line of her letter drifts back to him.  _ Please don’t look for me. Please stay at home. You’ll be safer there. _

“Like I’ve ever listened to anyone who told me I couldn’t do something,” Callum says. The corner of her mouth twitches the tiniest bit in spite of herself. “Rayla, please. Be logical about this. We’d be lucky to beat Viren _together,_ after what he did to Lux Aurea. Your parents were highly trained Dragonguard. I saw them; they were really skilled warriors, and they couldn’t beat him. You almost died last time you faced him. Why do you think this time is going to be different?”

“Because I don’t!” she bursts, her eyes bright and then horrified, and Callum’s heart breaks. “I’m going to go, and I’m going to die,” she says, sniffling. She’s never sounded so broken. Not even at the Midnight desert. “I can’t drag you down with me. I  _ can’t _ —” She shakes her head, crying with her eyes wielded shut. “I can’t do it—”

He’s so angry he’s shaking, Callum thinks, at the maddening impossibility of the girl in front of him. He wants to scream at her. He wants to make her see how special she is. He does neither of those things, his heart still twisting at the sight of her in pain. Maybe he can logic their way through this. He takes her forearms in his hands, tugging her to him. “You don’t have to,” he says, breathing through the heartache. “It doesn’t have to be you. Rayla, come home with me, please. We can go home.”

“I can’t,” she says hopelessly. “Runaan, the other assassins—they didn’t get to go home because of me. How can I possibly—how could I possibly let myself be  _ with you _ when they—when Ethari is all alone?”

“Ethari wants you safe, too,” Callum argues, but gently. His voice is as soft and firm as he can muster. “Just because you can’t stay in the Silvergrove with him doesn’t mean you can’t stay at all. Rayla, please. Come home with me. Have a life with me. Don’t you want that? We were happy.” 

“ _ Of course _ I want that,” she sobs, wiping at her face with the crest of her palms. She lets him tug her closer. “Of course I was happy. You—are the _ best _ thing in my life. I never wanted to leave you. I don’t want to leave you alone. I don’t want to die.” She swallows, composing herself. Her hands curl into the lapels of his jacket. “But if I have to, to keep the world safe, to keep you safe, to avenge my family, then I will. Someone has to repay those debts. I can’t let it be you. It has to be me.” 

“Rayla—”

“My parents gave their lives to stop him.”

“Yes, and you would have given yours at the Pinnacle. That debt’s been paid, Rayla.” It hurts to engage with the idea that there’s a price for her to pay at all, to prove that there’s some quantity of suffering she’s already been through in order to ‘earn’ her happy ending, but maybe this will get through.

A crease forms between her eyebrows. She has to think for a second, her eyes darting to the side. Maybe it is getting through. She looks a little unsure before she says, very firmly, “It’s my fault Runaan is dead.

_ “No,” _ Callum says. He will just have to be  _ more _ stubborn than her. “It isn’t. You did everything you could to help him. You explained everything to him. You showed him the egg; we were there. You tried to stall him. It’s not your fault he wouldn’t listen, Rayla.”

She turns away but doesn’t pull back when Callum cups one side of her face again. He brushes away her tears with his thumb. His other hand tucks her hair away from her blotchy, tear streaked face; his probably looks just as pretty.

“I would lie in bed in Katolis sometimes,” she confesses, “when I couldn’t sleep, and think about how I was only however many storeys away from the dungeons he died in. I—I _s_ _ hould have saved him.” _

“There was nothing you could have done,” Callum says. There’s a bit of relief making his chest crack. It’s really working. He’s breaking through the martyr complex, to the grief and then to the guilt. Maybe he can even find her heart again. He strokes his thumb over her cheek and takes her hand, kissing the back of her knuckles. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t even  _ think _ they need to be saved. Or want to be.”

Rayla looks at him for a long moment, something trembling in her eyes, before she steps back and slips out of his grip. Her voice is thin and shaking, the words more choked out than spoken. “Then go.”

“What?”

“You can’t save me,” she says. “So _ go .”  _

Callum hadn’t thought it was possible, to shatter further. Her fingers fidget with the edge of her satchel. Flit towards the canteen discarded on the ground, for the first semblance of an exit plan. Nothing has changed for her and everything has changed for him. The gulf between them is uncrossable.

His lungs labour overtime to get oxygen to his brain. His heart thumps painfully low in his chest. The truth is dull and like beating a dead horse at this point, but it still makes its way to his mouth.

“I love you,” he says, almost flippantly. Like it isn’t the most single damning fact about his life. “You can’t seriously expect me to listen.” 

Rayla shoves at his chest, but he can’t tell if the gesture is half hearted or if he’s just stronger now, because he doesn’t budge. Her eyes flash with unbidden, unshed tears. “You are the most infuriating, stupid—”

One of his hands capture her left wrist where her binding used to be, holding her hand to his chest. “Right back at you.” 

Something in her breaks and the tears come spilling out. “I  _ don’t _ love you,” she says, half sobbing, her hand curling into a fist against his chest. Callum opens his mouth to call  _ bullshit _ again despite how mad he is at her—because of the spell, because he knows her—but then she continues, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t love you the way you deserve.” 

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. They both know that, in this moment, it’s true. He kisses her back anyway when she leans forwards and presses her lips to his, aching and desperate but chaste. She draws away, her hand on his cheek, his fingers letting go of her wrist.

“And that’s why you will find someone else who can. I’m sorry.” She stoops to pick up her canteen and he hates her, just a little bit, mostly because he still loves her with every fibre of his being. Even as she says the two words he hates most of all. “Goodbye, Callum.” 

_ vii.  _

She only gets two steps away from him before he speaks.

“You were supposed to be different.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but it thunders in Rayla’s ears. 

She isn’t sure why she turns around, knowing only more pain awaits her. Maybe she’s a masochist. But the sight that greets her knocks the air out of her. She’s never seen Callum look so  _ dead _ inside before, the only spark remaining in his eyes a white hot anger. 

“What?”

“You were supposed to be different,” he repeats. The spark flashes. “My dad died, and then my mom. And then I met  _ you _ , and Viren betrayed me, and my stepdad died, and Soren and Claudia stabbed me in the back, and Ezran went back home without me and I survived it—all of it because of you. You stayed. You were supposed to be the person who stayed.” Tears spill over onto his cheeks, even if his mouth is still a firm, angry line. “I loved you, because you were supposed to be  _ different _ _._ But you’re just like everybody else. You just leave and leave and leave and I am  _ always  _ the person left behind!”

Rayla isn’t sure what stings the most: the past tense of ‘love’ obliterating her heart to pieces—she thinks of the way he looked at Claudia after the Nexus and wonders if his affections could change that fast a second time, if broken down far enough, and she’s certainly broken him—or everything else. 

She wants to say she’s sorry, but she ends up yelling instead. This isn’t easy and he’s just making it harder than it already is. 

“You think I _ like _ being like this?” she spits. “You think I like being unable to sleep? Being the person who always leaves first because I am  _ incapable _ of being happy? You think I don’t  _ hate myself _ for leaving you? For hurting you? You think I like being  _ broken _ ?”

“You’re too scared to try being anything else!” he snaps. “To trust anyone— _ anyone _ other than yourself! You act like you’re the only person who’s capable, who gets to have a choice? Why do  _ you _ get to choose for everyone else, huh? You couldn’t even look me in the eye and tell me you were leaving!” 

“Because  _ you _ wouldn’t have listened! Viren isn’t your fight and we both know it! You would’ve followed me out and I would’ve been weak and stayed—”

“So this is about being strong? About stupid Moonshadow pride, about not needing help? I can  _ help , _ I’m not useless—I can fight, I can fly—I deserve to have a say about—”

“Look me in the eye, then!” Rayla roars.  _ S tupid moonshadow pride _ _._ How can he possibly think this is about  _ pride _ ? She pokes her finger firmly into his chest. “Do you think Viren is still alive?”

Callum blinks, maybe startled by her ferocity or her proximity, before he glares at her. “Rayla—”

“Do you?” she hisses, their gazes locking. 

Callum’s jaw clenches. For a moment they only breathe. Then, the answer—what she knew it would be. “No.”

“Then no,” she says coldly, turning away. She won’t tell him about Claudia and Elarion; the dark mage could’ve been lying and Callum doesn’t need  _ another _ reason to go after her. He needs to go home. “This isn’t your fight, and you don’t get a say, since you think I’m still paranoid.” She shoves her canteen into her satchel; the flask is half full. That will have to do for now.

“I don’t think you’re paranoid,” Callum says, still angry but no longer shouting. “But you sure as hell are selfish.”

That makes her whip around to look at him, even if he hasn’t moved. For the first time since they’d reunited, he hasn’t taken a step after her. “Selfish?” she balks. 

This time Rayla walks up to him as he reiterates, “Yes,  _ selfish. _ Why does your pain matter more than, mine huh? You’ll lie to me and leave me and leave me again because you can’t stand to lose me, but  _ for some reason, _ I can stand to lose _ you _ _?_ I jumped off a mountain for you, I did dark magic for you, I jumped into the portal for you—”

“I never asked you to do those things!” she snarls.

“Oh, so I was just supposed to let you go off on your own and die?” he demands, gesturing. “Let you get in over your head, again? You never  _ learn _ ! And I know you’re not stupid—”

“No, I’m just selfish, apparently,” she mutters.

Callum glares at her. “Haven’t you ever thought about how every time you leave me, and get into trouble, I’m always the one bailing  _ you  _ out? Haven’t you ever thought about how much it fucks me over? Or can you only see your own pain?”

“You wouldn’t be in pain if you just stayed home and let me go!” Rayla is spitting fire, now. “And for your information, I lived a whole fifteen years without you, training, getting myself out of trouble because nobody else would, and I did just fine! I was doing just fine without you! I’ve  _ been _ fine without you!”

Because fine is survival, and she still wants him to live.

“Oh yeah, you look fine. Not exhausted and lonely and—”

“I didn’t even know I was lonely until we met!” The yelling can’t hide the vulnerability she’s just unearthed and Rayla flounders, for a moment. A childhood spent ostracized by other children and Callum’s gentle, unfamiliar prodding on the boat swells up around her. She feels like she’s drowning. She can’t tell if it’s Callum’s fault or not. “I was doing  _ just fine without _ you!”

It is so much harder, it turns out, to go back to being loveless once you have been loved without expectation or condition. It is harder to walk alone once you know what it’s like to walk together. One more reason why she has to fix this, for Ethari if no one else.

“I was fine with being on my own,” she says hoarsely. “Until  _ you .  _ You... ruined me.”

“Why, because I made you realize you don’t actually like being alone?” he says. She sniffles despite herself; she’s being pathetic. She’s just making this all worse. Why won’t he go already? “You’re the one who _ chooses _ to be alone, Rayla. I didn’t choose for you to leave me.” His mouth twitches. The light in his eyes tremble. “You ruined me too. I thought I could trust you. I—” Even his sigh sounds harsh. “Just answer me one thing, alright? If there  _ is _ anything you can do for me anymore.”

Rayla frowns, but nods.  _ Tell you what: I’m gonna ask you five questions .  _ “Alright.”

Callum stops and starts, looking torn between being angry or grieving, but finally he settles somewhere in the middle. “Why is everything I do to prove that I love you not good enough?” he asks, his eyes almost pleading. “ _ Why?  _ Do you just—not  _ know _ I love you?”

Present tense. Her heart rattles between her lungs, momentarily revived. _“_ _ Of course I know, _ _”_ she says, ragged. Her eyes burn. How does this hurt most of all? That she could ever make him doubt like this. “I just—I—”  _ just don’t understand it. _ She clamps her mouth shut, composes herself. The last thing she has ever,  _ ever _ _,_ wanted to make Callum feel is like he wasn’t good enough for  _ anything _ _._ Least of all her.

Rayla steps closer to him and wishes that everything could be different. That she could be remotely worthy of being the person he gave his heart to. But she isn’t, so the least she can do is to try and give it back. His scarf is all askew, his chest still heaving a little from their fight. He startles when she reaches for it, but he lets her as she straightens it out.

“I know you’re not weak,” she says softly, gazing at the red fabric. If she looks at his face she’ll break down and they’ll never be any closer to peace. “I know that you love me. Callum— _ I’m _ the weak one. That’s why people die. That’s why Viren is still out there. All I do is hurt people. Hurt you, and Ezran, and Soren. Ethari. You—you are a good person. You are the best person I know. You are the strongest person I know. I—I’m not worth it. I’m not. You can have a life, and love, and—you are so strong, and good, and compassionate. You’re the first human primal mage in thousands of years. It was your idea to take the egg back to Xadia. You are going to do amazing, wonderful things. You already have. You can _ live _ without me,” she says confidently, her voice breaking. “You could live without me. I know you could, if you tried.” Callum is shaking his head, looking stricken when she glances up, and Rayla chokes down a sob and carries on. “But I’ve never been as strong as you. I can’t even stay angry with you. I can't survive in a world without you. And that’s why I have to do this.”

“Rayla—” He catches her wrist when she goes to pull away. She gives herself one last indulgence; her fingers curl into his scarf.

“Just let me go,” she begs. “Please. Just let me go. Don’t follow me. Don’t care about me. Don’t love me. I’m not—” She pulls her hand out of his grasp and steps away. Glances back over her shoulder. This is the last time she’ll ever see his face. “Just hate me,” she says. “I’ve given you plenty of reasons to.”

And this is one of them, as she turns and goes.

_ viii.  _

It’s not the first time he’s watched her leave, but it does hurt the most. Because this time, Callum  _ lets  _ her walk away. Lets her leap into the trees. He looks away _ before _ she disappears from view. Regains whatever shred of agency he can. Dignity. Whatever you want to call it.

_ God fucking dammit,  _ Rayla—

Callum slams his fists against the nearest tree, his heart pounding. He wants to scream at her some more, make her see her worth, let out more of his own hurt, but it’s over, now. The warm glow from the spell in his chest has evaporated. It must’ve ended the first time he’d held her, thinking his quest completed. He’d sent Terry home with that stupid letter and now he doesn’t even have her to show for it.

Rayla is gone, again. Like always. 

_ And if she does not want to be found, she won’t be. _

_ You can’t save someone who doesn’t even think they need to be saved. Or want to be. _

_ You can’t save me. So go. _

He has his answer, then, with bitter finality. There’s nothing more he can do. Even with flight, she could hide from him in the trees. The only way to bring her home would be to drag her back, but then what sort of home would that be? What sort of person would he be? 

Callum has always been a quitter, with most things. He’d given up on sword fighting and archery and horseback riding when he wasn’t good at them, even after months or years of training and trying over and over again. The only good, smart option is to listen. To her, twisted as it is, and to his own better judgement. To go home. To quit.

To give up on her the same way she’s so clearly given up on him. On them. 

But the problem is that even if Rayla was good at all the things he wasn’t, she’d always felt like  _ magic _ .

_ And then you called me a mage, and that felt... right. _

Callum must stand there for an hour, mulling over whether he can bring himself to fill up his own canteen in the stream she’d deserted. His eyes continually drift back to the trees she’d disappeared between, even if he knows with every passing second, she gets further and further away. 

The hardest thing, maybe, is that he  _ wants _ to walk away. He wants to turn around and go home and sleep in a real bed. He wants to see his brother again. He wants to move on and find out whatever that means. Maybe he’ll still always love her, but he can build a life for himself that doesn’t have her as the centrepiece. At the very least, if he leaves now, he can be the one who goes. The one who leaves first.

Everything in him screams at him to go.

Would it really be so bad if Rayla had to live with her choices, for once? No one to bail her out. He’s not vindictive enough to get a bite of satisfaction at the thought, instead shutting it down. The idea of her alone and scared or worse, dead, is still—well, it’s carried him this far, hasn’t it?

Instead, night falls and Callum makes camp in the grove, not really sure what he’s doing. His body runs on autopilot, low on fuel as he assembles a fire and curls up in his sleeping bag with a restless head. She taught him Xadian constellations what feels like a lifetime ago. He looks at the moon once he’s finished tracing the stars. 

The moon is cruel and beautiful, bright and most of all,  _ fleeting _ . Impermanent. He wonders how long it will take before he can look at it without thinking of love. Without thinking of her. 

It’s hard to sleep, especially when the moon is almost full. It makes him more alert, similar to the way the storm on the Ruthless felt. Before, he would’ve been excited at the prospect of the moon arcanum, but now he knows it would just be another reminder of her. A reflection of the way Rayla hides and only ever shows half her face; the new moon when he finally catches a glimpse of all of her, and all it means is that she’s leaving. That she’s left.

But gradually, Callum drifts off for a few hours, his eyelids heavy.

The moon is starting to fade, the sky an indigo blue when twigs snap on the outskirts of the grove, and Callum sits up with a fulminus on his fingertips. He springs to his feet, for a second thinking that somehow, the silhouette is Rayla’s—that she’s come back, that she’s changed her mind, and he can take her home—as white hair catches in the moonlight, but then Callum sees the pallid face beneath it and his stomach drops.

“Claudia?”

“Long time no see,” she leers, her cloak rustling around her worn boots as she steps forward. Over half her hair is white and Callum can only guess it’s a side effect of dark magic. Her face is gaunt, eyes searching him hungrily, and unease sloshes around in his stomach.

The last time they saw each was with the dragon, right before he did dark magic. Soren had said she’d fled the battle after fleeing Viren. But after seven months of nothing, Callum can’t be sure how much of an enemy will be. Only one thing is for sure: she hasn’t been his friend in a long,  _ long _ time.

“What are you doing here?” he snaps. He doesn’t have to look up to meet her in the eye anymore, equal in height. He used to daydream about it back when he had a crush on her. Now the idea of ever liking her feels like a distant past, like the feelings belong to another person. Likely due to a combination of just how much she broke him, but also just how much Rayla has filled every crack in him, the ones she’s made herself included.

“Well I’m not exactly welcome back in Katolis, now am I?” she drawls. “I think the far more apt question is what are  _ you _ doing here? Oh, wait, I know!” She taps her nose with her finger and then points at him, smirking. “Looking for your little girlfriend.” 

A chill runs down his spine at the same time his vision turns red. How does Claudia even know they’re together? “Shut up!” 

“Don’t worry,” says Claudia. “She’s fine for now.”

He wills himself not to react. He knows all too well what a good liar Claudia is. She’s just bluffing. “What are you talking about?”

“Well she was looking for me and dad,” Claudia explains. “But it seems we found her first.” Her eyes sharpen and Callum’s brain kicks into overdrive.  _ We _ _?_ So Viren really is... Callum swallows hard. Claudia is the more present threat right now. He can’t star spiralling out. “We want to cut a deal, you see, for her life.” 

Panic rises like bile in his throat.  _ No no no, _ Rayla _ can’t  _ be captured. Not by Viren.

“It turns out you have something you need,” Claudia says idly, but her expression is cold.

His first thought is somehow they know about his arcanum and how it technically makes him a magical creature. That they want to cut it out of him or use him in some other way. Viren would at the very least. His stomach clenches, nausea rising even as he goes to agree, hesitating only because what if it isn’t? He doesn’t want to overplay his hand. Give up something that could be useful when so much is uncertain.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” he snarks.

Claudia narrows her eyes at him. He remembers that he lied to her, technically too. That it was fine for her and Soren to come along, that he’d gone along with Rayla’s illusionist plan. How deep the lines of deceit go.

“I think we’ve both grown up enough not to lie to each other, don’t you?” Claudia tucks a white lock of hair behind her ear and then continues. “You have the Key of Aaravos. Six sided cube thing-y.”

His blood turns to ice. His fingers twitch towards his satchel despite himself. His father’s letter had said it unlocked something powerful in Xadia. But anything that Claudia and Viren wants can’t be for a good purpose.

“Why not just take it from me?” he asks, half stalling, half stupidity and scrambling for something to think or feel. His mind loops back in on itself. Only three things really matter, after all, in this order: Viren has Rayla. Viren is alive. Viren wants the cube for Rayla’s life.

Claudia huffs and crosses her arms. “Aaravos says it’s something about tests of love. I thought you’d be grateful you’re getting a deal. He could just kill her.” Claudia picks at her nails. “Elves are great for dark magic.”

Callum’s hand settles on the strap of his satchel. He thinks he’s going to be sick. The moon is bright over their heads. Rayla’s voice rings in his ears.

I’m _ the weak one. That’s why people die. That’s why Viren is still out there. All I do is hurt people... You are the strongest person I know. I—I’m not worth it... You can _ live  _ without me. _

He looks up at the moon for a moment and closes his eyes. Just for a second.

He can’t prove her right.

His gaze is hard as it lowers back down to Claudia’s level. The sky arcanum had been fresh air after drowning, barrelling over his senses. The moon arcanum is quieter, as it clicks into place, nestled somewhere behind his heart and in between his ribs. Lujanne had said it was all about appearances—he keeps his face calm, masking the storm inside—but really, it was about the truth all along. 

Callum takes the cube out of his bag and holds it out to Claudia as proof, before stowing it away, his jaw clenched. 

Because the truth, as it turns out, isn’t true. It doesn’t matter if the truth is objective or real or not. If it’s requited or returned or deserved or not. Its definition goes beyond that; the truth is what it pertains to you. What matters most. What always will. Your south star when everything else changes.

The moon’s phases may change from dark to light, but they are still always the  _ moon _ . That is what it means to love.

“Take me to her,” Callum says tersely.

Because how could he choose anything else? 

(He’s just as selfish and just as weak as she is, after all.)

_ix._

Rayla doesn’t think she’s ever had a worse day in her life—which is saying something. 

There have been a lot of bad, hard days. Crying for her parents when they left her, and then crying again ten years later when the news arrived that they were cowards, and that their—her—king and prince were dead. Failing her first mission with the rain pouring over her head. Realizing she had to leave everything behind just for a hint of peace. Every night her wrist ached and she loathed and savoured the pain because her hand would be gone, soon enough. Seeing Callum cry and walk away from her, sure that he hated her now that the truth about his father was out. Seeing Ezran cry—gods, that one had hurt—refusing her comfort, and then Callum, basically dying in her arms. Being expelled from the Silvergrove. Losing Runaan and Ethari. Thinking her feelings were unrequited right when she’d been vulnerable and stupid enough to show them. Hurtling off the Spire and thinking she had to leave him—actually leaving him the night of the storm, wiping her tears away. The day Claudia had chained her up at the Ruins of Elarion. Every damn sleepless after Callum’s dead body showed up in her nightmares, and every damn day they’d been apart—

But no, the past twenty-four hours have  _ definitely _ been the worst. Holding and kissing him and sobbing and wishing he’d just make his life easier for himself and hate her the way she does. Walking away again. The gut plummeting sensation of climbing the forested hills to a series of deserted ruins, circular like the Moon Henge. Almost throwing up at the sight of not just one Viren, but two—one clothed in white and the other wholly corrupted by Dark Magic with purple eyes and a deep voice that didn’t sound right. Being encased in ice by the corrupted one, bound and then released faster than she could blink. Her hands and legs encased in thick abrasive rope.

Claudia was there, too, looking a little more ragged than she did the last time they’d met, but Rayla knows that she still looks worse.

The three mages keep talking about a  _ mirror _ and  _ levelling _ Lux Aurea the way they did  _ before  _ and some kind of  _ key.  _ The Viren in white breaks off in detours about what they can do with an elf in revenge for her killing him the first time around and Rayla feels small, her blades clipped to his belt; she can barely move. Then the corrupted Viren—Aaravos, Claudia calls him—says something about the key being a cube with one of the primal source sigils on either side, that will all glow when he holds it and free him from his prison—

The blood drains from her face. _ No.  _ No, it  _ can’t  _ be—Rayla swallows thickly, but she’s too late at choking down her panic. Viren sees it, seizes upon it. Claudia, damn them both to hell, translates it.

“Callum has it, doesn’t he?” Claudia says, her tone smart. Viren’s eyes glitter with dark possibility. 

“And here I thought she would just be a useful hostage to control the new king of Katolis,” Aaravos chuckles. His eyes gleam with an older light. He carries himself differently than Viren. She remembers Runaan speaking in hushed whispers to Ethari once, of the mirror that her parents were also responsible for guarding— _ something worse than death.  _ “But perhaps she is the key to something much greater. The human boy has my key, doesn’t he?”

Rayla shakes her head. The thought of Viren and Claudia telling him anything about Callum makes her feel sick. “No,” she says. “I just remembered who you are—”

“Don’t lie to me,” says Aaravos, all amusement gone. “We never lie, here.”

She pushes herself up. “I’m not lying,” she snarls. “I just don’t know what you’re talking about, and Callum doesn’t either.”

“The key was given to the Orphan Queen’s line,” says Aaravos to Viren, ignoring her although his scowl remains. “The human boy may only be related by marriage but from what you tell me of the former king, he may have been sentimental enough to pass it down to his stepson.”

“There have been rumours,” Claudia says, but she sounds almost hesitant, for some reason. “That Callum is in Xadia.” She glances over and Rayla glares daggers at her. “Looking for her.”

Aaravos’ starry eyes narrow. “Where is he?”

A fire like she’s never known roars in her chest. Rayla has almost died for many things, but she will gladly die for this. “I am not telling you  _ anything.” _

Aaravos’ scowl deepens but Viren shoots him a placating look. 

“No matter,” Viren says smoothly. He reaches for one of her swords attached to his belt and flicks it open. “We have other ways of making her talk.” 

Rayla twists, straining against her bounds as he approaches. Claudia turns away. 

“Where is he?” Viren demands. “Where is the cube?”

Rayla spits at him.

His muddy boot presses down on her shoulder, slamming onto the sore muscles and pinning her to the ground as he leers over her. Her own blade cuts into the flesh of her cheek in a thin but steady line. She knows better than to writhe lest the motion put the blade closer to her throat. She’d recently sharpened her swords for her assault on the hill and oh, how she regrets that now, as Viren begins to drag her blade back and forth, deepening the cut slowly. She bites her tongue to keep from crying out, but her eyes burn anyway. 

He straightens up after perhaps a minute. Her blood glitters on her blade and he lets the drops collect in a phial taken out of his cloak pocket. “I will start on your horns next,” he explains, smiling down at her. “And then your fingers, and limbs—did you know there are  _ so  _ many things you can do with Moonshadow organs and flesh? I’ll leave your pretty face for last.” Viren lowers her sword. “But I’m not unreasonable. You don’t have to suffer. I’ll even let you go, if you tell me where he is.”

A tear leaks out and drips down over the bridge of her nose towards the ground, but that’s the only response Rayla gives. They might as well just kill her now, for all the good torture will do them. There’s regret in knowing her body would be resources for them, but even bigger regret in knowing if she doesn’t make it out of this, there will be no one to warn Callum. At least he’s surely heading back home to Katolis where he’ll be safe.

She shifts, easing her chest off the ground to make breathing a little easier now that Viren isn’t pinning her any longer, for however long she has left to breathe.

Viren grits his teeth at her silence and raises the blade again, but Aaravos steadies his arm, placing a purplish, veiny hand on the white cloth.

“Wait.” Aaravos’ voice is sharp and Viren listens. The amusement is back, a broad smile spreading over his grey face. “No wonder she believes he is worth dying for. They are heart bonded.”

“What?” Claudia says, brow crinkling in confusion.

Aaravos points. Rayla cranes her neck downwards and catches a glimpse of something yellow glowing from her chest, through her clothes and where her heart pounds in her chest. It feels too hot.

“It is an old tracking spell,” Aaravos explains. “Dangerous too, and sensitive to danger. I wonder who he got to cast it for him...?”

“Get to the point,” says Viren.

“Yes, of course. In Xadia, or for creatures connected to an arcanum, magic is in everything. Even our emotions.” His gloating eyes rest on Rayla. “Even in love. The spell must have passed from him to you when you saw each other last. The spell only glows externally for the recipient.”

“I saw him weeks ago,” Rayla says. “He went home. I sent him home.”

“Liar,” Claudia says, although Rayla knows she won’t say how she knows. She won’t want to get in trouble with her father, to show her hand to Aaravos. An erroneous reflection of Rayla’s own state at the Moon Nexus, back when Claudia had been the girl Callum adored.

“Well, he can’t be too far if that’s the case,” Aaravos says.

“Find him,” Viren tells his daughter. “Kill him to get the cube, if you have to.” Claudia’s eyes widen for only a moment before she nods, her lips pressed together. 

_ “No!” _ Rayla chokes out, hoarse and angry, on the verge of desperation. “If you touch him I’ll kill you—”

“The elf is right,” Aaravos says, like he isn’t one too. Or wasn’t one, once upon a time. Perhaps he imagines himself as a god now. “If he was able to do a heart binding spell, then he is somehow connected to an Arcanum. I would like to find out how he accomplished it. Bring him back alive.”

Claudia’s shoulders ease the tiniest fraction as Rayla watches her walk away from the campsite, stranded amid grey ruins.

Claudia will come back with nothing. Callum is likely already long gone, flying home on his own. She gave him no reason to stay or try again. And even if he isn’t, he’ll never agree to the deal. Whatever Aaravos is, exactly, is dangerous. Callum wouldn’t endanger the whole world like that. For his brother, maybe—but not for the girl who broke his heart and then smashed it again into a million pieces.

“Besides,” Aaravos says once Claudia has faded from view. His boots are somewhere near Rayla’s knees as he smiles down on her. The blood from the cut on her cheek trails down to the corner of her mouth. “An elf and a human,  _ in love _ _?_ I have to see that with my own eyes.”

“You’re not going to see anything,” Rayla snarls, her cheek pressed against the stone. “He won’t come. He’s gone. He doesn’t care about me anymore.”

“I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other. You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Rayla doesn’t dignify him with an answer, either. Aaravos eases off as he and Viren take a seat by the fire on stones and logs and she watches her blades swing from Viren’s belt. Her eyes are still burning as she lies there on the cold ground, the sky streaked with clouds, and waits. Eventually, they will see that she is right. Claudia will come back empty handed, Callum on his way home. Eventually, they will kill her, if Viren doesn’t torture her first.

Her flower will sink in Ethari’s pond, and perhaps her remaining parent will tell Ezran and Callum what happened. Rayla wonders how Callum will mourn her. Bitterly, angrily? Heartbroken, surely—they were always friends—but perhaps relieved, too, that she can’t hurt him anymore. He will never know she died for him and it should stay that way.

It is nearly nightfall when her ears twitch to attention. Viren and Aaravos don’t eat or drink throughout the day—they don’t seem to need to—but Rayla’s throat is so dry, her stomach so empty she thinks she’s hallucinating, at first, the two pairs of footsteps.

Claudia climbs up the hill first, hair glistening in the moonlight. There’s a twisted smile on her lips.

And walking by her side, face tight, is Callum. 

“No.” It’s a noise more than a whisper and it slips Rayla before she can stop herself. “No,” she repeats more loudly, because this  _ can’t _ be happening. He can’t  _ be _ here. Not Callum. Gods above she’ll die a million painful deaths in his place—just not Callum. 

He’s here because he loves her and he loves her because he’s beautiful and stupid, and Rayla can barely breathe. Tears drip from her eyes. Amid the terror gripping her heart, there’s relief and love too. Love for him, because loving him is the same as looking at him and not looking at him. Relief, because she doesn’t want to die and she doesn’t want to die alone, and if she is going to die, at least she can see him one last time. But mostly terror, because she can’t lose him like this. She never could.

She shifts herself into a more upright position, weighing the pros and cons of trying to chew her ropes off, whether breaking one wrist would help—anything, to get him out of here.

Aaravos waves his hand and an invisible gag is shoved into her throat. Rayla chokes around air, her speech quelled. All she can do is watch as Callum takes in the double Virens, his eyes wide. He seems more alert in the moonlight, somehow. Carries himself a little differently. It already feels like a lifetime since they saw each other, even if it’s been a little over a day. But his gaze doesn’t remain on his enemies; it darts around in the dark instead, searching, looking, until—

_ “Rayla—” _ Her name escapes him in a rush and she whimpers as he surges over to her, eyes worriedly tracing the cut in her cheek, but he only gets a few steps closer before he bumps into some sort of equally invisible wall a good ten feet in between them. 

Purple light crackles from where he hits it and steps back, looking to Aaravos. The elf’s eyes glow the same shade of light.

Callum seems to catch himself. She thinks of the way he tried to run to her in the canyons, completely forgetting Sol Regem was even there. Tunnel vision. His hands curl into fists when he tears his gaze away from her. “Let her go,” he growls.

“He’s got the cube,” Claudia confirms, strolling past him to her father’s side.

“The key, first,” says Aaravos, the glow fading.

Callum’s face hardens before he looks away and digs a hand into his bag, pulling out the cube she’d retrieved for him from the Banther Lodge eons ago. The Sky and Moon runes both light up as he holds it out in his hand and her heart stops. The arcanum between them thrums. He didn’t...

“Dual connection,” Aaravos says almost delightedly, eyeing him with a smirk. “My, what a strange human you are.”

If the situation was less dire, Rayla imagines Callum might quip back  _ Pretty strange yourself _ _,_ because Aaravos is grotesque and ugly, shifting like something half alive, and not too dissimilar to how the real Viren himself moves. What had Claudia done, after all, to bring him back from a one way trip? A very long fall.

“Just let her go,” Callum repeats, almost hissing.

Aaravos steps forward, leering with that some treacherous smirk. “But you know what this will do, don’t you? If you return my key to me. The world as you know it... plunged into chaos. My chaos. Her life certainly can’t be worth all that.”

Callum doesn’t hesitate, even if his frown deepens. “It is to me.” His gaze wavers, for a moment. “I brought you what you want,” he says, sounding more and more done. “Now  _ let her go .” _

Aaravos waves his hand and her gag disappears. “Very well.” He holds out his hand, indicating that Callum has to walk towards him instead—and he starts to.

“Callum, no!” Rayla pants. Her throat is too dry to yell. There is little she can do and even less she can say. He’s too close, now. Even if he tried to run away with the cube, they would catch him. There’s no other way this can end.

He glances at her as he walks on up, their eyes catching. His are like steel and full of more conviction than hers were, when she came to take his life, but she still recognizes the feeling. The same one that drove her to leave him in the first place.  _ I have to do this . _

She truly can’t get rid of him.

Callum places the cube in Aaravos’ purple hand. She can’t hear or see it drop, from where she lies on the floor, straining against her binds, but Aaravos chuckles and turns to Viren and Claudia. 

“This is all we need.” 

“Then get rid of the wall spell,” Callum says, raising his chin when Aaravos looks back at him. Rayla can see it in the corner of her eye.

“No need,” Aaravos smirks and then sends him flying back with the same sort of wordless, runeless wind spell that knocked her swords out of her hands on the pinnacle. 

Callum lands near her, rolling hard on his back. His head hits a rock and her heart stops. She turns. Aaravos is doing some sort of spell behind her—Runaan’s voice echoes in her head;  _ Never turn your back on an enemy _ _—_ but Rayla doesn’t care. She crawls towards him on her hands and knees, her hands finding Callum’s face once she’s reached him after a few agonizing moments.

His eyes are bleary when they open under her touch. He doesn’t smile as he takes in her face. “Hey.” He reaches a hand up, his fingers brushing the cut on her cheek—his fingertips come away smeared with her blood. “Are you okay?”

She searches him for other signs of injury and finds the scimitar attached to his hip instead. “Can you take it out?”

His fingers fumble, his brain still clearly dazed, but he draws out the knife. Holds it steady while Rayla saws through the ropes on her hands, her vision blurry with tears. He’s here and he’s alive and she’s alive and—She takes the knife from him once she can and starts on her feet.

Once she’s free, Rayla throws her arms around his neck, gripping at the back of his head. There’s no warm stickiness. No warm blood. The relief and warmth of him makes everything in her rattle. Callum’s left arm loops loosely around her waist and Rayla can’t tell if it’s because he’s still weak or because he’s still angry with her.

She has two options as she pulls away. She can make a grab for her swords and go out, swords blazing. Kill Viren or Aaravos if she can as the sky splits open, purple and thrumming with magic; die with a sword in her hand in all likelihood. The release spell has already started. Or she can help Callum up, and they can live to fight another day—together.

Rayla grips the back of his jacket. Presses her forehead to his neck for a second, tears building her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says.

His arm tightens around her, like he’s braced for her to go. “Rayla—”

_ “I’m so sorry,” _ she repeats, sobbing. This is all her fault, but she can’t do that to him. “We have to get out of here.”

Callum sucks in a breath and then starts hoisting her up. They clamber onto their feet together, his eyes tired and red when they catch her, and wordlessly, he understands. He unloops the opal necklaces around his chest—gifts from Lujanne she guesses—and Rayla remembers the illusionist spell all the Moonshadow children wanted to learn, of how to cast illusion spells of themselves to skip out on class. She’d just wanted to train.

She takes them, crushing one of the opals in her hand and gripping Callum’s with the other as she murmurs the spell. Doppelgangers rise up and take their place and they hobble down the side of the mountain. The sky has gone back to blue by the time they reach the base and burrow themselves in the trees. She leaves her blades behind; they were crafted for revenge. She doesn't need them anymore.

They walk until the hills are well out of view and collapse near a stream. They get a fire going after a well aimed fulminus as night fades. Rayla cleans the cut on her cheek and prods the shoulder Callum landed on, using his scarf to make a bit of a sling for his arm when he winces.

“Just in case,” she says. It’s the first time they’ve talked since they left.

Callum is staring at her when she pulls back and she swallows hard. She doesn’t know what to say. It’s both a blessing and a curse when he speaks first.

“You chose me,” he says, not quite softly; she can tell there’s a lump in his throat. An edge of anger that not doing so was even an option.

“Yeah, well. It was about time,” she says quietly. “I—” The only thing she knows how to say is I’m sorry. Sorry that she lied, sorry that she left, sorry that she yelled at him, sorry that he had to bail her out just the way he’d said, sorry that she’s been loving him so poorly. It’s with a struggle and a start that she realizes the only thing she doesn’t want to apologize for is that  _ he _ loves her.

She just has to rise to it. 

Rayla holds out her hand without looking at him, their knees nearly touching as she stares at the fire. This used to be so easy and natural. Taking his hand and entwining their fingers the way she always did. Now, she knows that she just has to make the first move. She has to be the one to chase him this time. It doesn’t matter if he takes it or not. She just has to try.

Callum’s hand is warm in hers when he gives it. A different kind of tears than the ones she’s been crying drip from her eyes when he laces his fingers through hers.

She squeezes his hand and they sit there by the fire, battered and broken and tired.

Together.

It’s not quite everything... but it’s a start.

_x._

They don’t sleep that first night, dozing on and off through the morning and then walking for another twenty-four hours. Their feet blister. Rayla shares her canteen with him and Callum doesn’t aggravate his sling. The days blur together as they walk the entire way back to Katolis, but in a new way.

Slowly, they come back to each other. Rayla remembers to forage for the berries he likes best and he tries not to look too relieved every time she comes back from camp. His sleeping roll is big enough for the both of them and when Rayla hesitates, rubbing at her wrist, he just shakes his head and tugs her in beside him. She whispers an “I’m sorry” against his neck every night and Callum lets her, because she needs to for herself and it doesn’t hurt to hear it, and he just kisses her forehead.

They’re still mostly silent—memories running wild, of walking these forests alone, of Aaravos and Viren on the hills—but they’re together.

In the evenings, they make small talk. They talk about Xadia as they walk through it and it’s familiarity helps; him, enchanted by magic, and Rayla, his fond guide. He doesn’t ask her about all the things he saw without her, nor does she bring up her own. Their separation is still too painful to talk about. They’ll jump that hurdle eventually, but not now. She tucks her half of the torn picture next to his in his sketchbook and they keep it sealed tight.

They talk about themselves, too. Callum does tell her about Terry, if only because he thinks the similarities to Soren will make her laugh. (They do.) She asks about how the moon arcanum feels and they compare notes. It’s easy to smile with her now, even if it’s still slightly scary he’d felt like he was forgetting how.

“Your hair’s different,” he mumbles one night, reaching out. His fingers graze over a shorter portion that looks like it was severed separately, similar to when she’d lost her braid at the Banther Lodge, but more violent.

“Claudia,” Rayla answers. She always answers now, in a calm tone, even if sometimes it’s a little shaky. An attempt on her end, he knows, to never hide anything from him ever again. “She found me alone in Elarion and chained me up. She told me to go home to you.” Rayla bits down on her bottom lip, ducking her head. “I wish I had listened.”

“I’m just glad she didn’t hurt you,” he whispers.

Rayla can’t bring herself to look at him, but she still leans against his good shoulder. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I just...” Her voice breaks. This is the most they’ve said on it, in the week since the hills. “I really thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I could do it on my own. I thought... that you would hate me.”

He’s silent for a long time, mulling it over. Then, finally, he says, “Wow, you really weren’t thinking clearly, huh?” with just the tiniest twitch of his mouth.

Her lips curl slightly. That yes, the idea of him hating her is laughably untrue. He hopes it feels like a reaffirmation rather than a revelation. A reclamation after everything grief has already taken from her. From both of them.

“I don’t think the fear will ever really go away,” she says. “Not completely. My parents... Runaan... I think it’s just something I have in me, that they didn’t.” She closes her eyes and breathes and he knows she’s thinking of Aaravos. “There’s going to be a lot more scary things in the future. But if I’m just going to be scared, sometimes... I’d rather be scared with you. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” he says, because that’s where he’s been the entire time. Bitterness clouds his throat for a moment, that it took her so long to catch up. “Rayla...”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” she says, lifting her head to look at him.

Callum shifts, gazing back at her. “Thank you,” he whispers shakily. Tears sting at his eyes.

Rayla wraps her arms around him and pulls him to her and Callum buries his face in her shoulder, sobbing. Rayla sounds teary too as she holds him tight, his arms around her waist. The shock of the past week melts away, the anger and terror, too.

“I love you,” she says, her lips pressed to his ear. “I’d rather be with you all of the time. I promise. I swear—I swear I’ll never leave again.” 

He leans into her hands when she pulls away, her palms on his cheeks. She wipes away his tears. “I love you,” he says, because it’s the truth. 

It’s the only truth that matters, but it’s not the only one he has.

Rayla smiles at him and rests her forehead against his, both of them still teary. “I love you too.”

There is a family waiting for them at the castle, and a painting too. It is only a few weeks away. 

Rayla kisses him softly on the lips and then snuggles into him. Her arms are wrapped even more tightly around him than his are around her. Her heart beats steadily against his chest and Callum kisses her forehead.

But home is right here. 


End file.
